Laundry wash operations and the use of laundry treatment compositions are well known. However, for some laundry wash operations, current techniques are resource intensive, wasteful and environmentally unfriendly.
Laundry treatment compositions can provide cleaning and/or care benefits to garments. However, the wash operation with known laundry treatment often involves use of higher quantities of laundry treatment composition and washing in a ‘full laundry wash cycle’ in an automatic washing machine. This is based on an assumption by the formulators that maximum cleaning or treatment benefit needs to be provided to all fabrics under the conditions of the wash operation to ensure all fabrics are treated equally or maximally.
However, for some wash operations, such as delicate garments, lightly soiled garments, or garments simply in need of a ‘refresh’ (maybe after being hung in a wardrobe for a period of time), current wash practices can be wasteful in terms of resource and environmentally unfriendly. In other words, the volumes of laundry treatment composition traditionally used are not needed to achieve the desired benefit. In addition, with respect to the garments themselves, especially delicate garments, current wash process can be quite harsh on said garments. This may be from the harshness of the cleaning composition including amount of cleaning composition used, from mechanical friction and high temperatures in the washing machine, long wash times, or a mixture of these. Furthermore, often such delicate garments also require less intensive washing as they tend to have minimal soiling and/or only require a refresh.
Hence traditional wash operations can reduce the lifespan of a garment, especially delicate garments. This has a negative environmental impact as the consumer tends to discard the garment and replace it with a new one.
Therefore, there is a need for a wash operation in which less intense treatment of garments is required and which is more environmentally friendly.
It was surprisingly found that the present process provided such a wash operation.